


Alive, indefinitely

by Disworl



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternian Society, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Communion with the dead, Gen, Save for some timeline fudgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25076506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disworl/pseuds/Disworl
Summary: Aradia Megido has been surrounded by death for as long as she can remember.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Author's Favourites





	Alive, indefinitely

i.

Though she has been aware of the dead ever since the brooding cavern trials, it is only when she is three sweeps old that Aradia truly _understands_. She has spent her life in the outside the city, thankfully clear from highbloods. (S _o far_ , Ram mom reminds her, _so far._ _)_ The internet is wide and wonderful, and it is through there that she learns about archaeology, the wonders lying just beneath the ground and thinks, _to be an archaeologist would be_ _an awfully gra_ _nd_ _adventure_. She has been able to make a fair amount of friends, though she hasn’t had much interaction with anyone higher than olive (and to be honest, she’s rather relieved).

She finds especially good company with one boy, his troll tag resting at the top of her chumproll. He’s a rustblood like her, a bit reserved but passionate about the mystery book he’s writing. Occasionally he sends her snippets from it, and while it’s a bit clumsy, he is always eager to hear about her archaeological expeditions, so she never mentions it.

One evening she trolls him and he does not respond, and with sudden clarity she knows why. She can feel him hanging in her hiveblock, and when she turns around she sees him, pale and faded like a half-erased drawing, feet fading before they can touch the floor. She talks to him a bit, but it’s not the same, there’s something missing, she can see it in the hollows of his eyes and he knows. She asks him what happened, and he just shakes his head.

She gives him the best imitation of a hug she can muster before he goes, arms wrapped around air, and once he dissipates the room feels colder.

ii.

After that, it’s like a dam has broken. Where before she could just feel ghosts in the air, had used that instinct avoid danger in the brooding caverns and beyond, now she can see them, can talk to them. She meets a wide variety of ghosts, barely there shades who have no name or face to speak of and nearly-solid figures with little to do but lament their demise before they have to disappear, and in each she can see the visage of her old friend.

At four sweeps, she makes close friends with a mustard blood who is a bit sharp and all sullen, but she enjoys his company despite it, and soon enough it’s very clear that he so does he. She learns early on about his ability to hear the imminently deceased, how their voices accompany him every minute, hour, second, but even if she hadn’t, she thinks she would have always known. Occasionally he’ll visit her hive, and there, in person, she sees the pits under his eyes, barely hidden by his glasses, the hard line of his collarbone against his loose shirt, sees something she recognizes.

Sollux is not the only friend she has, of course. She is still the girl she was a sweep before, even as her life separates between her usual pleasures and her duties to the dead. She befriends other trolls – bronze bloods, rust bloods, mustard bloods, even some olive – and they die, and die, and die, and she gives them whatever she can before their ghosts dissipate. And they never die cleanly.

With each communion it feels like the divide between her two lives is thinning, even as she goes out on digs and tries to find a way to give more to those deceased than a short talk and a hug. At any rate, she knows there is little she can do to prevent the deaths – this is _Alternia_ , after all, and occasionally wonders if one day she’ll be another voice in Sollux’s head, another disposable rust blood among millions.

So she starts to rebel. She grows her hair out, longer than the modest shoulder-length cut she had before. She lets it become wild, a sign of her own spirit and power. She starts painting her lips and lining her eyes in burgundy, a mockery of the high bloods who wear their blue hues as a fashion statement. And she tries, _tries_ , not to wonder about the other possibility, that one day she’ll turn around, and she’ll see a ghost with curved double horns, and double snagged fangs, and hollow, hollow eyes.

It is not much, but it is all she has.

iii.

When she is five sweeps old, she makes another close friend. He’s a bit shy, but unapologetic about what he likes – his fiduspawn collection, pupa pan, FLARPing – and that, as much as she loves Sollux, is a breath of fresh air. She listens to him talk about how he admires pupa pan, and she regales him with tales of her archaeological excursions. After one such tale, he suggests that she try FLARP, and she agrees. They make a strong team, enjoying the challenge the game brings while also being able to beat more aggressive players – as two lowbloods, no less.

Sollux and Tavros are not the only long-lasting friends she has, of course. She befriends Karkat through Sollux, and Terezi through Karkat, and it’s through Terezi that she learns about Vriska. As it turns out, Terezi and Vriska are also FLARPers, and they welcome a challenge from Team Charge. While she’s hesitant to compete against a cerulean blood, she trusts Terezi, and their first co-campaign is a thrill. They arrange another one, and soon the two teams have a steady rivalry. Occasionally Tavros seems a little down after one, but when Aradia asks, he says that he’s fine and changes the subject. So their FLARP campaigns continue, and everything is okay, until it isn’t.

She hears about what happened, hours after Vriska leaves Tavros on the beach. She makes her way to him as fast as she can when he tells her what happened, and the rest of the night is spent bringing him to his hive, looking over him, and talking urgently with Terezi. He says nothing for the rest of the night, merely nodding or shaking his head to anything she has to say. She spends the next few days keeping him in good health and waiting for the wheelchair to arrive, but soon enough she has to leave for her own hive, lest it get raided or demolished.

She still talks with Tavros, however, but now he’s uncertain, hesitant and ashamed, and a fair number of times when she trolls him he doesn’t reply, and when he does more than anything he talks about the things he’s experienced in his dreams, and she knows exactly _who_ has been trolling him even if he doesn’t say it and –

– and Aradia watches her friend become a living ghost, bit by bit.

And, of course, the spirits hang around her hive like dust. While Vriska paralyzing Tavros was nearly giving him a death sentence in Alternia, she usually didn’t extend even a chance of survival for her other FLARP competitors. Their voices crowd in, the line between her two lives shattered, and she is left little choice. Perhaps if Vriska confronted her ghosts – piles upon piles of bodies behind her, and yet a paltry amount compared to the amount that have flowed through Aradia’s head since the first one – maybe the weight would lead her to finally feel remorse.

iv.

The shock of seeing Sollux actually at her hive is quickly overtaken by the shock that courses through her veins right after she realizes what is about to happen, and far too late to do anything about it.

v.

The others are surprised to hear from her again, Sollux more than anyone. He never asks her about it, almost as if afraid to wake up from a dream, and she never tells. There’s more important things to do. Everything feels muted now, like she’s halfway underwater and the rest of the world is above the surface. The only thing that feels clear is the march of time in her head, the knowledge of what must be done, the voices of the dead all conglomerating in her mind, no longer individuals but a mass, a crowd.

She tears apart ruins and she constructs the game to bring about her world’s end and she tricks what used to be her closest friend and her nights blur together into one endless möbius strip, and she barely feels a thing. In between tasks she sometimes thinks about who she was, but the activity bears little fruit – she can only bother to remember shadows of things, like that she used to like archaeology, something might have happened to her because of some roleplaying thing, how hauntingly reminiscent of something she just might look. It matters little, in the end.  
  
The timeline follows a certain path, and she will ensure that events will happen according to the path. Of course, even if she didn’t, the outcome would be the same – what will happen, is happening, has happened, is inevitable. She is merely a convenient way for it to happen. It’s either that or that she was always meant to end up like this. The voices of the dead filter through her head nevertheless, a monotone hum, and she waits, and waits, and waits for the world to end.  
  
(Later, she will be angry, blue blood running through her heart and her veins, but even then she is still dead regardless of the illusion the soulbot provides, and even then there is only what the Alpha timeline requires.)

x. a lifetime later.

She’s tired of temporal inevitability.

She’s free of the endless orders and voices of the dead.

She, for the first time in her life, feels truly alive.

Instead of the pale shadows that clung to her hive, the hollow ghosts that people left behind, the dream bubbles are filled with countless iterations of her friends, and numerous others. But even then, dying and waking up in foreign surroundings is a shock.

And really, there’s no-one else who would be a better guide to greet the dead.


End file.
